(1) Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to hydrophone assemblies, and more particularly to a hydrophone assembly that is to be deployed on the bottom of a body of water for reception of underwater acoustic signals.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Tracking surface ship and underwater vehicles with hydrophone systems is known in the art. For a complete view of cooperative and uncooperative targets in a given area, such hydrophone tracking systems are typically deployed on the bottom of the particular body of water. To track various types of vehicles, it is desirable for the hydrophone to have as broad a receiving bandwidth as possible. Further, it is desirable that the hydrophone system operate independent of its orientation on the bottom of the water. To be useful in a variety of application scenarios, the system should be portable in nature and should be easy to place on and retrieve from the bottom of the water, i.e., it should not require a specially designed deployment vehicle or deep-water diving personnel. Ideally, each hydrophone of the hydrophone system would also be modular in nature to contain its own signal processing electronics. This would allow the hydrophone system to be custom designed with as many and/or as few hydrophones depending on the requirements of the application.
Previous bottom-deployed tracking systems are deficient in one or more of the above described design criteria. Prior art hydrophones have avoided integrating the signal processing electronics with the hydrophone owing to mechanical resonant interference from the signal processing housing. Finally, the prior art tracking systems are not designed for repeated installations and therefore are not portable.